The Australian Lifestyle & Work Culture is Undergoing Transformation

How we live and work in Australia has changed dramatically over the last decade. 21st Century, Social Researcher & Futurist Mark McCrindle points to 3 top trends which he believes will define this coming decade.

Mr McCrindle is an award winning, social researcher and bestselling author who regularly gives advice and strategy guidance to executive committee boards of some of our country’s foremost businesses and organisations.

The Nature of Australian Employment

Mr McCrindle observes that over the last decade portfolio careers, a focus on work/life balance and sea change lifestyle positions dominated the employment landscape. Things are looking up though and according to Mr McCrindle we should expect to see stabilisation as our aging population leads to skills shortages. Job opportunities to rise the career ranks will open up in the future because retirement will be on the books over the next decade for 40% of our current senior management leaders as they reach retirement age.

The average age of those employed in the health sector sits at 45, while education is at 44, so those staff who develop experience, move up the ladder and into leadership will be paid handsomely into the future.

Mr McCrindle is optimistic about business shifting back to investing in staff, believing Australia will see the business community return to skills training and development, increase work tenures and provide more job stability.

In other good news, if Mr McCrindle’s predictions pan out: work/life balance, diverse employment history, flexibility and a collaborative approach to leadership will remain important to Australian workers into the future.

Saving and Fiscal Responsibility

This decade it’s time to be smart with your money. Materialism and consumerism is calming down as people wise-up to the uncertainty of the job landscape of tomorrow. Conspicuous consumption will simmer down as continued global financial uncertainty, high debt levels, rising cost of living and the increasing strain of supporting an aging Australian population take their toll.

Web 3.0 is the Future

‘Fun’ Web 2.0 of the last decade saw the popular explosion of Facebook and user generated content, as well as new ways of communicating such as Twitter. Mr McCrindle believes our society will collectively grow up over the next decade and demand companies focus more investment in creating useful online tools and practical applications to make our lives & our work easier and not just ‘fun’.